 In the mid-60s, a major change took place in the character of the fighting in Vietnam. Large numbers of American combat troops began to arrive. Until then, the fighting had been handled by Vietnamese forces with American troops serving primarily as advisors. The enemy, unable to defeat this combination with primarily guerrilla-type forces and operations, had begun bringing in regular North Vietnamese army units in large numbers. It was in response to this massive influx of North Vietnamese troops that United States combat units were sent to Vietnam. Troops did what they came to do. They carried the fight to the enemy where he lived. The aims of the aggressor were checked again. And at the same time, the armed forces of South Vietnam were growing both in size and capability. This took a big jump forward when the national mobilization laws were enacted. Throughout Vietnam, it was recognized that providing real security for all the people was essential. And that if the job were to stick, it would have to be done by the government of South Vietnam itself. With the end of the 1960s, the time had come for another major change in the character of the war in Vietnam. That is, free world forces would begin to phase out of the war, as the people and the armed forces of South Vietnam became capable of filling the gap. The term that has been used to describe this change is Vietnamization of the war. Vietnamization means Vietnamese armed forces taking over, but it also means, it has to mean, a great deal more. How much more, every Vietnamese soldier has helped to understand, since so much of the effectiveness of this effort will depend upon him. He learns that Vietnamization also means pacification, and that both terms take in a wide range of action. Military, political, psychological, civic, social, economic. All of these, as they go forward, mean progress to peace. And this progress to peace, all the factors. Military, educational, economic, political, psychological, and social, all interlock. None alone is an answer. But since there must be real security for the people in their daily lives, before the other factors can be put to work, the first steps are primarily military, security for the people. A chance to live their lives without being in constant fear of harassment and terrorism by the communists. The Vietnamese army, as it grows in size, experience, and capability, is making strides toward detaining this initial goal, taking over a step by carefully coordinated step, the areas of responsibility that have been held by American combat units. In planned stages, it has been extended to other areas. The Vietnamese Navy continues to function off the shores of Vietnam, keeping watch over the sea approaches. It also patrols the shoreline areas to intercept enemy shipments of arms and supplies. The Vietnamese Navy has also taken over from the United States armed forces in the highly effective riverine operations in the Mekong Delta country. Units of the Vietnamese Marine Corps enjoy a fully earned reputation as fighting men, and they continue to maintain that reputation as their forces are being expanded under the Vietnamization program. The Vietnamese Air Force has not yet reached a level of size that will enable it to meet fully the needs of combat over the whole nation, but its pilots are capable and their numbers are growing under an intensive training program. The same kind of training effort is being applied to the pilots of helicopters as the Vietnamese armed forces push toward the day and they can meet all their combat and combat support needs using their own people. The program extends into the technical and support operations of all the Vietnamese armed forces. Hundreds of technical personnel have been trained in various levels of maintenance in such essential areas as transport, communications and ordinance. Many of these have been trained in American technical schools outside Vietnam and they return home not only to perform their new skills, but to teach them to others. Once a given area has been cleared of enemy main force units, the prime responsibility for ensuring local security rests with forces designed specifically for this job. One such is the regional force which operates on the province level and ranges throughout its assigned territory as needed. These are company-sized units, specifically stationed in their given province and serving it. They continually seek out the Viet Cong, engage them in battle and if necessary, call on arvin or allied forces to reinforce them or take over. At the district level, the platoon-sized units of the popular forces function. These are not as mobile as the regional forces they rarely go far from their own hamlet, but they form an important part of the structure designed by the Vietnamese government to attain and then maintain security for the people. The popular forces typically protect points of control and communications in and around the towns and hamlets, checkpoints, government installations, warehouses, bridges, as well as the perimeters of the communities themselves. Both the regional and popular forces can call on the mobile advisory teams of the United States Army for advice and training help. Such teams assigned to province areas work with and through the province and district chiefs. At their request, the teams go wherever they're needed to help regional and popular forces improve their operations and do an even better job of providing for security on a local basis. On a still more local level, in the villages and in the hamlets, boys and older men participate in the people's self-defense forces. Some women serve too in support capacities. The boys and men, either too young or too old for regular military service, do an important job providing village self-defense, mounting regular and successful ambush patrols against the VC. Perhaps even more important is the mental atmosphere reflected by the very existence of these volunteer self-defense forces. On the one hand, the willingness of the people to be identified with the government to accept it as their government and to stand against the Viet Cong. On the other hand, the willingness of the government to put its trust in the people, to provide them with arms and ammunition and training. And the people's self-defense forces know small development. More than three and a half million villagers have volunteered to take part. In addition to the forces which meet the threat of communist aggression from without, a major emphasis must be placed on rooting out the hidden communist structure within. In the cities of Vietnam and in the towns and hamlets, the national police provides a prime answer to this need by augmenting the armed forces of South Vietnam. They are, along with the regional and popular forces, increasing the ones who maintain security in areas which have been made secure. More like the town police that we know are the policemen who work at the district and lower levels, assigned to hamlets and villages. They handle the usual things that township police handle, crime, disturbances among citizens, as well as some matters concerning the VC. Though in most action of this latter sort, he would call on the National Police Field Force or regional or popular force units for help. All of these forces direct their efforts toward achieving that first essential goal, security for the people so that they can raise and sell their own products, live their lives without the burden of constant fear. This security is growing. A prime indication of this is the massive increase in the number of local communities which have elected local governments throughout Vietnam. This happens only when the people of a village or hamlet are really convinced that the government's protection against Viet Cong terror is here to stay because officials of local governments have been a prime target for VC assassination since the fighting began. Today, more than 90% of all hamlets and villages have elected local governments. This is a big step and an important one, a development that has really mushroomed since early 1969. The communist failure to win over the people became even more apparent under the Army of Vietnam and regional forces protection. The South Vietnamese intensified their program of building. New roads, bridges, schools and other public facilities began to dot the landscape. Today, there are hundreds of thousands of Vietnamese enjoying government protection. They are beginning at last to live without fear and to build with confidence for the future. But security, as we said, while it must be the first step, is only the first step. The Vietnamese government's follow-through takes many forms. One of these is seen in the members of the Rural Development Cadres, the RDCs. They work in specially trained 30-man teams, lightly armed and well able to lead and teach villagers the techniques of local self-defense. But this is by no means their whole job. They are also teachers for the children. Each RDC team includes a wide range of know-how. They are trained administrators, people who know how to set up a dispensary and get it running, people who can help with planning and village sanitation or agriculture or marketing. In their own words, they encourage by good example. They live with the people, work with them. They demonstrate by what they do that the government is interested in the people and in helping them help themselves. Working with the newly elected village council, the RDCs help in the planning of community improvements and show the council how to apply to the national government for funds under the Village Self-Help Development Program. In short, they help local self-government and self-development get rolling. And this is filling a long-standing vacuum in terms of local government in Vietnam. Until 1954, in many areas, the entire administrative system, often down to the village level, was run by the French. When they left, the resulting vacuum was made worse, as the Viet Cong systematically murdered village leaders and teachers. Now, with more than 9 out of 10 hamlets in villages working under elected local governments, the situation is changing for the better. Many of the new capabilities that are helping the entire nation are cultivated here at the training facility called the National Cadre Training Center at Vong Tau. Newly elected hamlet officials receive training here to help them get started in the business of local government. The 30-man teams of the rural development cadres receive their training here, and popular forces instructor cadres are also trained for their work at the Vong Tau Center. Village technical people such as village sanitation chiefs, dispensary personnel, and administrative specialists are schooled here, too. All of these people go back to their villages and hamlets with at least basic know-how to guide them as they begin working out the social and civic and economic progress of their individual community. Once local elections have been held and a new local council gets organized, it comes up with a decision as to some prime need of the village. For example, a school. They're eligible for government funds to help in providing their own answer to that need. They decide what the need is. They will contribute their muscle and sweat. The government will contribute funds from the village development program. If the project is fairly large-scale, perhaps some materials will be provided by AID, the American Agency for International Development, and technical help by the Vietnamese government. Another vital effort being made by the government with U.S. help is the continuing program of improving and extending the road and waterway networks of Vietnam. Thousands of square miles of area, which before were largely isolated, are now becoming readily accessible. The roads and waterways provide a tremendous boost to economic activity. They create ready avenues for the movement of goods of all kinds. They are also vital to the development of local governments. If the VC can keep a village isolated, they can keep it dominated. Every road means just that much less isolation. It also provides a route for quick action by Vietnamese Army or regional force units if a village or hamlet needs help. The economic impact of this program can be startling. One large town which formerly existed in virtual isolation now has a good primary road. With transport of goods so much easier, the cost of living in the town has dropped by 40%. Another sweeping element of change in the pacification effort is the land reform program. The government is in the process of transferring ownership to the farmers who work the land and compensating the former owners. Former colonial lands have been given over to local ownership. And the program calls for more action in the same direction as more and more areas are made secure. People living and working on land that now belongs to them, not someone else. This too is a factor in people identifying with the government. Government funds may further underscore the point made by its land reform programs. For example, rural credit loans make it possible for a group of farmers to get together and buy farm machinery which they can share till their land with an efficiency unknown in the past. The same kind of loan may enable a fisherman's cooperative to replace heavy, easily torn, fiber nets with light, long-lasting ones of nylon. These are only two from dozens of possible examples. But whatever the specific need they provide, such loans are further evidence that the government is in fact concerned with the progress of the people and is working to further that progress. The stable crop of Asia, of course, is rice. And a major step forward in the economy of South Vietnam has been the introduction of the so-called miracle rice, designated IR8. This high yield rice produces two to three times greater volume at harvest time. Once the farmers realize this, the planting goals were quickly exceeded. In fact, self-sufficiency in rice is now in sight for the Republic of Vietnam, even in excess for export. It's a giant step toward one of the cornerstones of peace, a stronger, more self-sufficient economy. Another aspect of pacification is the resettlement of the masses of people who were evacuated from battle-torn areas to become refugees. With wider security being established throughout the country, there has been great progress in resettlement. Most refugees return to their former homes, often with government assistance in the form of a resettlement allowance. Something to help them settle back in. The price of a new cow or tin roofing to rebuild their house, depending on what they've lost and what they need to get started again. Those who don't return to their home areas often go to new locations, perhaps to lands provided under the land reform program. Or they may simply decide that the refugee hamlet in which they've been living can be a self-supporting community. They've put down new routes, established a new way of life. They elect officials for their new community and go to work to make it thrive. No account of the progress of Vietnamization and pacification would be complete without at least a brief examination of the returnee program known as Chu Hoi. This is a government program which offers full amnesty to Viet Cong and even North Vietnamese Army troops who decide to leave the communist ranks and join with the South. The VC or NVA man who makes this decision is sent to a center where he receives food, clothing and medical care. He is sent through a course of re-induct donation. Between 1965 and the end of 1970, more than 150,000 Viet Cong and North Vietnamese Army soldiers have come over to the South. Before the returnee leaves the Chu Hoi center, he is taught a trade. He then goes to a Chu Hoi village or back to his home. He too has become one committed to the Republic of Vietnam because he knows that he is now a Viet Cong target. But he also knows that his amnesty goes all the way. He is a fully accepted citizen. He can qualify to vote or serve in regional or popular forces back in his home region. The Chu Hoi returnee may work with an armed propaganda team going out to tell the story of his own experience to the VC and the countryside in an effort to persuade others that the Chu Hoi program does in fact mean what it says. Genuine amnesty. All of these activities, programs, policies, have as their objective the attainment of a situation in which the people of Vietnam can determine the way they want to live their lives and then live them free from constant fear. As large numbers of American forces have returned home, Vietnamization proceeds. Vietnamization, pacification. These are words, but they stand for and attempt to define a condition of life for millions of people. The establishment of area security by military means and with the follow up of national police protection, then the building up of stronger local and national government, greater productivity in the economy of the nation and Hamlet. All of these are part of that definition. And all interlock and depend on one another. Just as do the lives of the people. This program, as it succeeds, is deadly to the aims of the Communist enemy. He knows this. He's not likely to just let it happen. So, it will take a continuing and massive effort on the part of all concerned. The enemy will do anything he can to disrupt it, but so far the progress has been such as to warrant a cautious air of optimism. The objective is clear. Some of the means to achieve it are beginning to work. The outlook for the future carries something more of hope. Self-government, self-development, self-defense at the national level and at the village level. And all the beginning steps are being taken toward progress to peace.